When the Shadowrun development team first started designing Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, we talked about some of the things we definitely wanted the game to contain. Several ideas came up, including this one: We wanted riggers back. The previous edition had made tremendous strides in terms of simplifying and streamlining game play — one of our tasks would be to retain (and improve) simplicity while also making sure distinctive elements that make Shadowrun such a compelling setting are in place.

Riggers are just such an element. Ace drivers and pilots who are capable of not just steering a vehicle but being the vehicle, riggers are a prime embodiment of the combination of man and machine that is part of the core of the Sixth World. And fans, we found, are eager to play them. In the big summer conventions of 2015, I talked to several people who asked the same question: “When do we get a rigger book?” For many players, the ability to customize and modify a vehicle to make it exactly what they want it to be is as important as designing the perfect weapons loadout or learning the right combination of spells. Shadowrunners love to tell their stories of their heavily armored RV with hidden gun turrets, or their fleet of camouflaged ground and air drones that can see everything without being noticed. They wanted a resource that could detail all the vehicles their characters might be able to use — or steal. We, of course, were eager to give it to them.

The core of any rigger book is the new cars, trucks, boats, planes, drones, and more that it contains, but that’s not the only thing a book needs to really communicate the whole rigger experience. Since we cannot, unfortunately, give people the real experience of inserting their consciousness into a vehicle and fully becoming the machine, we are left to do the next best thing: Help them imagine it. Some of the art and writing of a rigger book needs to convey the exhilaration of melding your consciousness with a fast, powerful machine, describing the odd peace that comes from deftly maneuvering through chaos. One of the illustrations from the book captures this perfectly. The left side of the image shows a city intersection in chaos, explosions and smoke clogging the street, drones and vehicles adding bullets to the fray. On the right side of the image, an orange-striped sports car with glowing blue rims speeds away. Its tires are slightly above the ground in the moment captured in the illustration, so it looks like it is taking flight. It is driving smooth and clean away from the chaos behind it. It’s a great depiction of the rigger’s peace in speeding through chaos.

Once the mood is set and people are aching to get behind the wheel/helm/control stick/whatever, we need an alluring fleet of vehicles and drones to keep them involved. “Alluring” can mean many things in a rigger book. Most obviously, it describes the vehicles that players will read about and want to take out for a spin. But it can also mean vehicles whose price range takes it outside of what most runners can ever spend, those luxury vehicles that they might see as signifiers as wealth, or that they might try to steal to send a message to a particular target (while also giving them the chance for some high-price fun). Finally, a vehicle might be alluring because it suggests a story; simply reading about it offers plotlines and opens up stories that can become exciting parts of a role-playing campaign.

Here are some of my favorite examples of each type. First, there’s the Mack Hellhound. A burly truck bristling with muscle and guns, one look at the illustration would be enough to make plenty of players want to add it to their fleet. The facts that it is loaded with drone racks and has a standard rigger-friendly features only serve to make it more of a rigger’s dream, and while it’s not cheap, riggers will do the scrimping and saving they need to be able to drive this truck into heat and show everyone around just who is in charge.

While the Hellhound may not be cheap, it’s an absolute bargain compared to the Lurssen Mobius. This yacht’s price tag is so high, a whole team of runners could likely retire with the amount of money it would take to buy one. This is not something runners will buy — not only is it heinously expensive, but runners do not often have the need for what is described as a “140-meter mansion on water.” It’s a little ostentatious and attention-grabbing for people who usually like to stay out of sight. The people who will use this boat, though, are the ones runners often target, the rich and powerful of the Sixth World. The description of the watercraft gives gamemasters the information they need to give players the chance to encounter one of these behemoths and, if they play their cards right, maybe slip behind the helm for a few minutes piloting a ship that represents the pinnacle of Sixth World luxury.

To explore the allure of plot hooks tied to a vehicle, let’s look at the Dassault Sea Sprite. A tilt-rotor search-and-rescue craft, the plane is also described as occasionally being equipped with guns, which might be used to take out an engine so that the plane can drop toward water level, deploy some rafts, and engage suspicious watercraft. On top of that, the book reports that some smugglers are buying Sea Sprites through the black market, since their distinctive profile and use in search-and-rescue operations tend to keep them from appearing suspicious. This means, then, that gamemasters can generate plot twists simply by flying a Sea Sprite overhead if the runners are making a trip over water. Once they notice it, runners will have to decide if it’s actually on a search-and-rescue mission, if it’s intending to intercept them and make their day worse, or if it’s a fellow shadowrunner — and possible competitor — bringing complications with them. The appearance of a Sea Sprite gives a gamemaster options, while heightening the paranoia of the runners. Which is always good in a Shadowrun game.

The whole point of a core rulebook is to give players and gamemasters more options and make them excited to use them. With Rigger 5.0, we’re glad riggers have their time in the spotlight!